


She Can't Help But Fall

by moosewingz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Dominance, Experimental, F/M, Lucius only makes a really brief appearance but I love him, Obsession, Synesthesia, a bit anyway, at least on the part of the author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 08:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moosewingz/pseuds/moosewingz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People assume that Bellatrix is the one in control, that she wouldn't ever submit for Rodolphus, that she wouldn't even want to go to bed with him and that she would rather lie alone and think about the Dark Lord. </p><p>People couldn't be more wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Can't Help But Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on [hp-kink-memes](http://hp_kink_memes.livejournal.com/): "rodolphus lestrange/bellatrix black - [dominance](http://hp-kink-memes.livejournal.com/1820.html?thread=11036#t11036). People assume that Bellatrix is the one in control, that she wouldn't ever submit for Rodolphus, but people couldn't be more wrong."
> 
> I've always thought the Death Eaters were amazing characters (evil, obviously, but amazing), and Bella and Stan and Roddy are definitely up there with the best. It's fab to finally write about them :D (even if this isn't necessarily my headcanon, shh)

The life of Bellatrix Black is full of strong characters.  


The Dark Lord goes without saying, volatile, terrifying, remorselessly cruel. Rabastan Lestrange is dark, deranged, and his low, cracked laugh is a sure sign of pain to come. The Malfoys, with their cool arrogance and blatant disregard for public opinion as they strut through high society knowing no one will challenge their vicious behaviour; the MacNairs and the Rowles, brutal and bloodhungry; Snape and the Yaxleys, conniving and sly; the Dolohovs and the Averys and Crouch's rude and wild-eyed boy.  


Not to mention Bellatrix herself, violent and unpredictable, a whirlwind of wanton destruction and ecstatic insanity.  


Compared to all that, Rodolphus Lestrange doesn't seem like much. He's the grey to their rainbow, the order to their chaos, the silence and the shadow and the calm at the eye of the storm.  


Countless people have disregarded him, assumed he wears the tattoo because those around him do, looked him over and breathed a sigh of relief when he puts a hand to his companions' shoulders to pull them away from a victim.  


Countless people have died, sobbing and screaming and begging to be handed back to Bellatrix.  


*  


Bellatrix Black always thought she couldn't love, never saw a reason to mourn it. Alone and proud and unbendable she would stand, and the world's tempests would break against her.  


Rabastan was the same as her, hooded eyes that glittered with danger, molten savagery bubbling just underneath his skin, waiting for any chance to escape. They were drawn together, to the horror they could cause, and it was like their souls hummed as one. Perfection in their joint depravity.  


The only thing she never understood was the way he clung to his brother, hovered near the pale, withdrawn boy like a mouse desperate for the treat but wary of the trap. When she asked, Rabastan just smiled that skull-like grin and gurgled an approximation of a laugh. _No explanation_ , he said, _one day you'll see_ , he said.  


_(He's the one I love, he meant, but Bellatrix refused to hear it then.)_  


*  


And then she did.  


*  


An offhand comment at a soirée, a sneer and a shrug and a stalk away. That's all it took.  


A hand on her arm, a fist in her hair, and there are stars behind her eyes from the slam into the wall. His eyes aren't like Rabastan's, too sharp to stare into for long, bright and crazy and full of twisted desires. _His_ eyes are black, flat, holes in his head that swallow up the light and give nothing back, not even a reflection.  


His face is expressionless.  


“ _Don't,_ ” he murmurs, two inches from her face, not a hair out of place and not a hitch in his voice.  


Then he's gone and she's alone, panting and confused and desperate for something she can't name.  
p.It's then that it curls into her heart like poison ivy, strangling and choking, tighter and tighter until there's only room for one word inside, one word that echoes and reverberates until her whole body beats in time to it.  


_Rodolphus._  


*  


The moment Rabastan sees her face, he knows. He melts into a dreamy smile she's never seen on his face before, and he holds out a hand to her.  


She grasps his hand and cries that night, weeps quietly into his chest for no reason she can think of, while he coos and pats her hair.  


_(Rodolphus.)_  


*  


Bellatrix Black doesn't know if this is love, this feeling that threatens to drown her, promises her she'd enjoy giving in. Rabastan calls it an obsession, with a small, sad grin that makes her ache with sympathy.  


_(Rodolphus.)_  


This desperation, this need, Bellatrix doesn't know what she should call it. But she knows it intimately, recognises without thought what it means.  


She knows that he's the void, the emptiness. She could pour all her rage and her excitement and her perverted joy into him, and he would take it all, would swallow it up, and still it wouldn't fill him. Where she would be - _is_ \- dragged down until her head's below the surface and she can't breathe without the hate filling her nostrils and her mouth and her lungs, he would cover it with the sickly-sweet velvet nothingness and it would be gone forever.  


_(Rodolphus.)_  


He could devour her, pull her down inside him and trap her there. She'd let him.  


She's the planet being drawn inextricably towards his dead sun. She's the debris swirling on the whirlpool's surface; he's the endless chasm hidden below.  


_(Rodolphus.)_  


Bellatrix doesn't know whether she can love, but she doesn't want to know now. Giving this a name might break it, and she's not sure she remembers how to stand on her own any more.  


*  


When Lucius unwraps the binding on his arm, he glances furtively around as he shows them the raw, red skin and the intricate lines that curl upwards from his wrist, a brand of servitude so falsely delicate.  


The three of them peer at it, and Rabastan's fingers hover just over the skin, uncharacteristic in their hesitancy.  


But before he can touch or back away, Lucius asks the question.  


Bellatrix and Rabastan's eyes meet over the skull, staring unseeingly up at them. As one, without a word, they turn to look at _him_.  


He meets their stares, cocks his head to one side, hums under his breath.  


And then he smiles.  


*  


Years Bellatrix has waited for this, even before she knew what she was waiting for. And now she has it.  


No ties, no bindings, not here. They're not needed. She holds still because he wants her to, because she lives for that rarest of treasures, the smile that sometimes flutters across his face. It's always gone in less than a breath, a ghost that's never quite real.  


Bellatrix has been learning to tease it out, learning how to crave the beautiful pain that follows it. She knows now how to fix his gaze on her alone, how to narrow that abyss until only she can tumble down into it and lose herself.  


_Rodolphus._  


She knows without needing the words which look means _spread your legs_ , which lazy gesture means _open for me_. She lets him play her body, inside and out, with long fingers, curious and selfish.  


He never asks. He knows.  


She buries the sounds between her teeth and tongue, trembles and shivers and aches right down to her very core. But then he meets her eyes, crooks one eyebrow, and she hears the intended _scream for me_.  


Bellatrix's howls are wordless but it doesn't matter. He hears what she's trying to say.  


_Rodolphus.  
_

Rodolphus.  


And then he's right there, above her, and his smile settles in to stay. Not just a flicker this time, but a slow, terrible, _addictive_ grin. Something inside her crumbles away into the shadows around them, and suddenly he opens his mouth and it's not just inside her head this time but in the air between them, crystallised and perfect and ringing in her ears.  


“ _Bellatrix._ ”  


She wails and the bed shudders and her blood sings through her veins. His pulse thuds on between her legs, her thighs clamped around his wrist, and surely something has to give because for one sweet moment it's like she's floating and empty and cradled by cool, calm hands.  


*  


Rabastan knows again, and he shies away from her for the first time since they met. Everything's too bright, too clear, too brittle, and Bellatrix has never been able to fix the things she breaks.  


For one moment, everything hangs in the balance, ready to snap.  


But Rodolphus knows, he always knows. Rabastan and Bellatrix are his, and though the words have never passed his lips, he has promised to keep them.  


“Brother.”  


Rabastan takes his hand and laughs that deep, hiccuping giggle. Perfection in joint depravity.  


*  


Rodolphus likes to experiment, and Bellatrix likes to bend for him.  


When the Dark Lord calls, she runs to do his bidding, delights in the stench of fear and the symphony of screams. Voldemort is her conductor, and Rabastan the partner in her terrible duet.  


But it's Rodolphus who wrote the music she plays, who composes strain after strain of torturous joy across her skin every night with light touches and heavy chains and his own expectant voice.  


*  


Bellatrix Black always thought she couldn't love. Bellatrix Lestrange knows she doesn't need to.  


Rodolphus has her shackled to him, heart and soul, and what she can or cannot feel is irrelevant. There's no resisting the pull of the bottomless abyss confined by her husband's skin. Everything falls before him, torn apart and broken and sucked dry, victim after victim after victim.  


But he always turns to Bellatrix when he's done, and his eyes are still so dark and empty, and every time she willingly falls into him once again.  


*  


Rodolphus Lestrange is the strongest person she's ever met, and Bellatrix would follow him to places the Dark Lord would never go. She's just waiting for him to ask.


End file.
